Overtime. Part 58

He looked round for Giovanni, but he'd gone. In the darkness, Guy could make out a tiny figure walking across the blurred and naked foreground, not looking at the sky. He had a torch in one hand and a tray round his neck. He was, Guy realised with grudging admiration, selling popcorn.

The film show moved with considerable pace; and although the voices were all so faint that he couldn't hear any of them, he found that he was able to follow what was going on. This was the Sixth World War; then the foundation of the United States of Oceania and the Eurasian People's Republic; the 2120 World Cup; the Macclesfield Missiles Crisis; the restoration of the Jacobites; the Fifth, Fourth and Third World Wars; the Berlin wall; the Second World War

'Hey,' Guy shouted, 'that's me ...' Then the screen he'd been looking at suddenly went blank, and he suddenly didn't want to watch any more.

The film show went on, however, gaining momentum as one spool grew bigger than the other, so that the discovery of America and the reconquest of Spain seemed to merge into one another, and the Apaches merged seamlessly with the Moors. The Moors became Turks under the walls of Constantinople, then Mongols streaming across the steppes of Russia, and then Saracens laying seige to Antioch ...

Then the film stuck, as if a huge hair had got itself jammed in the gate of Time; and, as always seems to happen, the film seems to crackle, and little wisps of smoke

'Satisfied?'

'All right,' said a m.u.f.fled voice from inside the rubber castle, 'there's no need to make a b.l.o.o.d.y great performance about it.'

'Come out, then.'

The rubber castle stirred uneasily. One of the small children who had been bouncing about on it a few minutes before dropped its ice cream and started to yell.

'Can't we talk about this like sensible adults?'

'No.'

'How about arbitration?'

'No.'

'Toss you for it?'

'No.'

The castle writhed a little, like a dyspeptic python. 'Best of three?' it said hopefully. 'Use your own coin?'

'No.'

'Look, there really isn't anything personal, it's just...'

King Richard raised his sword again and pointed at the ground in front of him. He was smiling, but his smile had about as much to do with joviality and bonhomie as a cap pistol with a Howitzer.

'You wouldn't,' said the castle, shaking like a crenulated jelly.

'Watch.'

'But opening the Archives ... You haven't got the faintest idea ... Thousands of years ... They just won't fit...'

King Richard raised the sword in both hands, whirled it round his head, and brought it down in a flashing circle of light that seemed to cut a section out of the sky. A fraction of a second before it hit the ground, he checked the stroke and wobbled furiously. The castle unhuddled itself.

'Very funny,' it said, and its voice was on the thin edge of hysteria. 'Knew you wouldn't have the ... No!'

The sword rose.

'All right!'

And where the rubber castle had been, there stood a gateway, and behind it, mile upon mile of winding battlements and cloud-topped watchtowers and sun-spearing keeps and mottes and baileys and ...

And the gate was open.

Something fell from nowhere and landed at Richard's feet. It was a small, bra.s.s Yale key, attached to a scruffy rectangle of cardboard by a broken rubber band. On the cardboard someone had written, Chastel des Larmes Chaudes. If n.o.body in, leave with Number 47.

Guy stood up and looked around.

About forty yards behind him lay the burnt-out wreckage of his plane. Somehow, he realised, he had got out of that thing before it blew up. Pretty impressive; shame he hadn't the faintest idea how he'd done it.

Nor, he realised, had he very much idea where he was. France, presumably; which meant his troubles weren't over yet. It would probably be a good idea to run somewhere.

'M'sieur!'

He looked round, feeling more foolish than anything else. 'h.e.l.lo?' he said.

'M'sieur!' the voice hissed again. 'Allez! Allez vite!'

Ah yes, you (plural) go fast. Just what I was thinking, miss. Where, though?

The owner of the voice appeared out of the darkness, and Guy allowed himself to relax slightly. Not likely that the Germans were recruiting seventeen-year-old French girls into the SS. More likely, this was a friendly native.

'h.e.l.lo?' he said. 'I think ... I think I've banged my head.'

The girl scuttled forward, grabbed him by the arm and dragged him behind a bush. Ambiguous, Guy said to himself; but she's probably hiding me from a German patrol. Ah yes, there they go. Let's not say anything for a minute or so, until they go away.

When they had gone, the girl hauled him to his feet again -just when he was getting comfortable, but that's women for you - and bundled him off into a sort of small wood. He followed her, trying to trip over as little as possible, until they came to a little cottage. There was a light in the window. The girl stooped down, picked up a small stone, and threw it against the pane.

'Here,' Guy said, 'don't do that, you could break something -'

'Tais-toi, idiot,' the girl hissed (a high-cla.s.s hisser, this one; of course, French is a much more sibilant language than ...

The light went out, and the door opened. Probably the householder, come to give us a piece of his mind.

'Isoud,' came a low voice from the darkness, 'c'est toi?'

'Si. On arrive.'

Guy felt himself being dragged towards the cottage. A young man appeared and grabbed his other arm. Tall chap, light blond hair, moustache.

The young man closed the cottage door and the girl pulled down the blinds. 'Etes-vous blesse, m'sieur?' the young man said - are you (plural) wounded, sir? Oh I see, am I all right?

'I'm fine,' Guy replied. 'I think I may have banged my head ...' Then he fell asleep.

When he woke up, he discovered that the girl's name was Isoud and her brother was Jean, and they were with the Resistance. Nice girl, too. Reminded him of someone, too, but for the life of him he couldn't remember ...